Finished plastic packages are formed from sheet plastic material such as polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride. The sheet plastic is unrolled in a flat area with opposite longitudinal edges folded to form cuffs along what eventually form the top edges of the front and back panels of the bag. Edges of the bags are cut from successive bags along sides of the bags and where no connection is to be made, the web is coated with material that prevents the plastic from adjacent layers from fusing to one another.
The bags are made by folding a roll of plastic sheeting on a center line that runs longitudinally of the plastic roll as it is unrolled, and the plastic is folded along its longitudinal center line so that the fold is at the center of the bottom of each bag; and the material on opposite sides of the longitudinal center line become the front and back of the successive bags that are formed by severing the bags upon melting through the plastic to provide bags with welded edges at the sides of the bags. The folded longitudinal edges that are bent to form the cuffs along opposite edges of the roll of plastic provide upside-down pockets with slots at the upper fold lines and handles extending through the slots and having their opposite sides secured to the stiff handles that are longer than the slots and lift the bags by contact with the top folds, beyond the ends of the slots. The construction has a handle at the top of the front or back of the bag and a similar pocket at the top of the front or back that does not have a handle. A similar pocket that does not have the handle, does have a pocket with a slot that telescopes over the pocket with the handle to hold the bag closed by putting the handle through the slot in the pocket that has no handle to close the top of the bag as a neat package.
The sides of the bag are welded together by applying heat that welds the front and back panels where the bags are melted along lines of severance. In order to locate the pocket that has no handle in a convenient location for telescoping over the pocket that does have the handle, when closing the bag, surfaces of the bags that would weld together by the heat that cuts the individual bags apart has heat resistant lacquer applied to surfaces which are not to be welded to one another in the final assembly of the bag.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will appear or be pointed out as the description proceeds.